Twilight Zone: the Trial

By Frank Trippett

"What you will see is no illusion," Deputy District Attorney Lea Purwin D'Agostino told jurors in a packed Los Angeles courtroom. "These were not deaths in which someone can get up and wipe the bloody-looking catsup off their faces . . . They were very, very real deaths." Indeed, said D'Agostino, it was Director John Landis' "zeal for realism" during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie that took the lives of Actor Vic Morrow and two children in a helicopter accident on July 23, 1982.

Landis and four associates face charges of involuntary manslaughter in the trial that opened last week in Los Angeles Superior Court. Yet the movie industry itself seemed be in the dock as D'Agostino, denouncing the defendants' conduct as "outrageous," declared, "We do not tolerate this type of behavior in society, and Hollywood should be no exception."

Landis, 36, one of Hollywood's most successful young directors (Animal House, Trading Places, Into the Night), faces up to four years in prison if convicted. He and two assistants, Special Effects Coordinator Paul Stewart and Stunt Pilot Dorcey Wingo, are accused of being criminally negligent during the filming of a Viet Nam War sequence in which a helicopter, disabled by a special-effects explosion, crashed onto Morrow, 53, and Vietnamese Actors Renee Chen, 6, and Myca Dinh Le, 7. The director and two other colleagues, Associate Producer George Folsey and Production Manager Dan Allingham, are charged with an additional count of manslaughter for endangering the lives of Chen and Le. Attorneys for the defendants say they have admitted they violated ; childlabor law by hiring the children without permits and letting them work as late as 2:20 a.m., the time of the fatal stunt in Saugas, Calif., 35 miles north of Los Angeles.

But they deny their clients were negligent. The helicopter crash was unforeseeable, said Attorney James Neal, Landis' defense counsel. Neal, a former Watergate prosecutor, will try to fix the blame on Special Effects Technician James Camomile for detonating the explosion too close to the helicopter. Says Neal: "Mr. Camomile, holding the highest powder card issued by the state, violated the first principle of his profession. He failed to view where the helicopter was." Camomile was granted immunity when he testified before a grand jury.

Well before the accident, the prosecution contends, Landis was so overbearing on the job that he was disposed to recklessness. D'Agostino said her witnesses would swear that when warned by a casting director that children should not be used in the stunt, Landis curtly responded, "The hell with you." As D'Agostino told it, Landis cavalierly shrugged off the concerns of another employee during a rehearsal of the stunt. According to the attorney, the director told his worried colleague, "This is just a warmup for what's coming. You haven't seen anything yet." Landis, she said, refused to use dolls instead of children because they would not "give him the real-life effect."

Although the proceedings may involve as many as 100 witnesses and go on for four months, the crush of spectators last week is a sure sign that the case has a firm hold on Hollywood's attention. Said Defense Lawyer Arnold Klein last week: "If we could sell tickets, Twilight Zone: The Trial would outsell Twilight Zone: The Movie."

With reporting by Scott Brown/Los Angeles